1. Technical Field
The invention relates to an IC card case and an IC card case unit.
2. Related Art
In recent years, cards containing personal information such as IC cards and credit cards have been used in electronic commerce and. the like.
To prevent illicit use of cards, some IC cards are designed such as to be used only after confirming card holder's identity by obtaining personal biometric information as a means of authenticating that a user is a rightful owner of an IC card.
As a means of obtaining personal biometric information, for example, an IC card provided with a fingerprint sensor, which uses a fingerprint as the biometric information is known (for example, refer to the first example of related art). The IC card having such fingerprint sensor performs the user's authentication (personal authentication) by reading the fingerprint information of the user through the fingerprint sensor and determining whether or not the read fingerprint information matches the fingerprint information stored in the IC card.
Now, the fingerprint sensor, being vulnerable to shock from outside, may suffer damage such as to make it impossible to provide good fingerprint authentication. Hence, it is necessary to protect the fingerprint sensor.
In cases other than the IC card, there is a fingerprint authentication device mounted with the fingerprint sensor to carry out personal identification. For example, a device, which stores the fingerprint sensor therein for protection if the fingerprint sensor is not used, is known (for example, refer to the second and third examples of related art).
Consequently, what is desired is an IC card unit which protects the finger unit sensor by storing the IC card equipped with the fingerprint sensor inside the card case.
JP-A-11-312225 is a first example of related art. JP-A-2001-143045 is a second example of related art, and JP-A-2003-196646 is a third example of related art.
Now, since the general IC card is due to be updated, for example, in three years, a new IC card must be manufactured every three years. On the other hand, the IC card equipped with the above-referenced fingerprint sensor has a higher cost when updating the card as compared to the IC card not equipped with the fingerprint sensor.
Further, since the fingerprint sensor was set up in a condition of being exposed to a surface of the IC card, when putting the IC card in and out the card case (IC card case), there was a risk of damaging the surface of the fingerprint sensor as the surface came in contact with the card case.